We experimentally examine how the incentive to defect in a social dilemma affects conditional cooperation. In our first study we conduct online experiments in which subjects play eight Sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma games with payoffs systematically varied across games. We find that few second...

This paper analyzes the setting of national patent policies in the global economy. In the standard model with free trade and social-welfare-maximizing governments à la Grossman and Lai (2004), cross-border positive policy externalities induce individual countries to select patent strengths that...

This is an experimental study of a three-player power-to-take game where a take authority is matched with two responders. The game consists of two stages. In the first stage, the take authority decides how much of the endowment of each responder that is left after the second stage will be...

We study the external validity of a standard laboratory measure of cheating. The results show that cheating in the lab significantly predicts classroom misbehavior in middle and high school students.

We test experimentally an explanation of over and under confidence as motivated by (perhaps unconscious) strategic concerns, and find compelling evidence supporting this hypothesis in the behavior of participants who send and respond to others' statements of confidence about how well they have...